In a new resolution, the committee stepped past a number of proposed resolutions (included in the list here) that would have changed the terms of the plan that General Convention passed via Resolution A177 at its last meeting in 2009. That resolution authorized the Church Pension Fund to implement the DHP plan by Jan. 1, 2013, with benefits to be provided through the Episcopal Church Medical Trust.

The committee’s new resolution, for which a hearing still must be scheduled, commends the 94 percent of the church’s domestic dioceses (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. portion of the Diocese of the Virginia Islands) that have already joined the plan, and reaffirms the Dec. 31, 2012 enrollment deadline.

According to A177, those guidelines determine the minimum amount that a congregation must contribute towards the monthly premium for eligible clergy and lay employees. The dioceses that have already instituted or formulated cost-sharing policies have chosen options ranging from mandating that employers pay the full cost of a specific plan to requiring all employees to pay a percentage of any plan or of a specific plan.

The new resolution also commends the Medical Trust “for progress made toward containing health-care premium costs, and urges it to continue to reduce the disparity in those costs among dioceses.” It also wants the Medical Trust to “continue to explore alternative strategies to arrive at a more equitable sharing of health-care premium costs” and to annually report to Executive Council, the House of Bishops, the medical trust board of directors and the Church Pension Fund trustees detailing progress towards that end.

The committee drafted the resolution after the members spent 75 minutes earlier on July 6 discussing the testimony it heard the prior evening. During that discussion, they expressed little or no interest in ending mandatory participation in the plan.

Committee members said, however, that they heard a lot of comment about the issue of what has become known as “parity.” Some committee members said people are using the term to refer both to the equal cost-sharing issue required in A177 and to mean a uniform pricing of insurance premiums across the dioceses. A subset of the latter concern, committee members said they heard, involves how the costs of insurance coverage are spread among the dioceses with some paying less and some paying more to support the entire system.

It seemed doubtful that a single church-wide premium was achievable, Deputy Chair Deborah Harmon Hines said. “I think the case was made that nothing costs the same thing across the country,” she said.

“But the social justice issue is more about bearing one another’s burden. And we’re all over the place on that,” she added. “We’re hearing people say they believe in that except when it comes to their own diocese.”

Earlier in the discussion, the Rev. Reid Farrell, a Vermont deputy, illustrated that very point when he called it a “no brainer” that his diocese would buy health insurance outside of the Medical Trust.

“I mean, it is for us, anyhow, much as we want to be part of the DHP, the parity and fairness is doing what’s best for the people in our diocese because they’re our first concern,” he said. Other committee members reacted with “Whoa.”

Some committee members warned that dioceses and congregations that currently find cheaper coverage elsewhere may see their rates go up. They questioned the fairness of allowing groups to move in and out of the denominational-wide plan based on the market at any given time. In the end, the committee chose not to include concerns over that issue in its resolution.

Committee members also discussed the sense they had that some clergy object to paying some portion of their insurance premiums in order to assist the congregations in their dioceses in insuring lay employees.

“In order to reach parity, clergy are going to have to give a little,” Deputy Lisa Sargent of Northern California said to a round of agreement from her colleagues.

“I don’t understand the resistance,” Harmon Hines agreed. “I understand that for a very long time clergy have gotten totally free health care, but that’s not the rest of the world.”

— The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.

I agree with Jay Croft. Until clergy have parity in terms of the FICA tax, we are talking about apples and oranges. That extra 1/2 of Social Security premium would go a long way in my household to help pay a small portion of the health insurance cost.

I think the Committee should know how difficult many of my colleagues have found it to use the mental health portion of the National Insurance Plan. It is restrictive and offers few choices for “in network” providers. Also, speaking of justice, this plan, because it eliminates the options many dioceses now provide that often make it possible to cover employees in a variety (and often cost saving ways), becomes another way that small congregations subsidize larger ones. I imagine a high percentage of small congregations don’t have any lay employees that qualify at all for the insurance. In the name of justice for lay employees in larger congregations, these congregations must bear the increased cost of this prohibitive one choice national plan.

For the Church to be increasing insurance benefits and costs for employees and their family when the rest of the Country is decreasing them is crazy. At least we can vote the politicians out. The House of Bishops, unfortunately, is another thing. When most parishes cannot raise enough money to fund outreach, for the Bishops to be increasing fixed costs by mandate is not what God had in mind.

This is a well intentioned proposal that makes no sense fiscally. Has anyone calculated its cost to congregations, which are already struggling amid reduced revenues? If this proposal were mandated upon my parish, which has long provided generous health insurance to full-time lay employees, and in some instances, to their dependents, our treasurer estimates our health insurance costs would increase by some $100,000. If this expansive, expensive mandate passes, I hope the increased costs for it can and will be offset by equal reductions in congregational payments to dioceses, with corresponding reductions in diocesan payments to the national church.

I agree with Rev. Chumbley. For our 3 full time employees our premium increase will be over $21,000 for a medium sized parish in a rural community. We are trying to decide whether to cut parish programs, our extensive outreach ministries, or hurt our employees by reducing their coverage or requiring them to share costs — a net decrease in pay. There is something very wrong with a program that undercuts budgets to that extent. We have always offered very good coverage using a local agent for BCBS. It is beyond me how the BCBS option with DHP is so much higher. I think that as long as employees are adequately covered that we should be allowed to purchase our plan with the most economical option.

It was a big mistake to give the Medical Trust a monopoly on our health care in the first place. For all their posturing that it would “save money” because we would be pooling our resourses, we are seeing that this is simply not true. Monopolies are NEVER a good idea. Mark my words, the next change will be that every diocese will be required to pay the same amount as a matter of “justice.” It will force some diocese to not participate in the DHP. I know my diocese simply would not be able to afford to participate. We already have parishes who have cut hours to below the minimum and put off plans to hire lay employee because they cannot afford the expense. I’m all for requiring health care coverage for our lay employees, but we should be given plenty of time (6 to 8 years) to implement it, and we certainly should not have to buy from the Medical Trust.